Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various
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ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced, with his golden pen,
On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
And had he not high honor?
The hillside for his pall;
To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall;
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes,
Over his bier to wave;
And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in his grave;
In that deep grave without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay
Shall break again—most wondrous thought!—
Before the judgment day,
And stand, with glory wrapt around,
On the hills he never trod,
And speak of the strife that won our life
Through Christ, the incarnate God.
O lonely tomb in Moab's land,
O dark Beth-peor's hill,
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of grace—
Ways that we cannot tell;
He hides them deep, like the secret sleep
Of him he loved so well.
—Cecil Frances Alexander.
———
O, blessed is that man of whom some soul can say,
"He was an inspiration along life's toilsome way,
A well of sparkling water, a fountain flowing free,
Forever like his Master, in tenderest sympathy."
———
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence!—yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
—Alexander Pope.
———
EMIR HASSAN
Emir Hassan, of the prophet's race,
Asked with folded hands the Almighty's grace,
Then within the banquet-hall he sat,
At his meal, upon the embroidered mat.
There a slave before him placed the food,
Spilling from the charger, as he stood,
Awkwardly upon the Emir's breast
Drops that foully stained the silken vest.
To the floor, in great remorse and dread,
Fell the slave, and thus, beseeching, said:
"Master, they who hasten to restrain
Rising wrath, in paradise shall reign."
Gentle was the answer Hassan gave:
"I am not angry." "Yet," pursued the slave,
"Yet doth higher recompense belong
To the injured who forgives a wrong."
"I forgive," said Hassan. "Yet we read,"
So the prostrate slave went on to plead,
"That a higher seat in glory still
Waits the man who renders good for ill."
"Slave, receive thy freedom; and, behold,
In thy hand I lay a purse of gold.
Let me never fail to heed, in aught,
What the prophet of our God hath taught."
———
TRUE GREATNESS
Who is as the Christian great?
Bought and washed with sacred blood,
Crowns he sees beneath his feet.
Soars aloft and walks with God.
Lo, his clothing is the sun,
The bright sun of righteousness;
He hath put salvation on,
Jesus is his beauteous dress.
Angels are his servants here;
Spread for him their golden wings;
To his throne of glory bear,
Seat him by the King of kings.
—Charles Wesley.
———
The glory is not in the task, but in
The doing it for Him.
—Jean Ingelow.
———
MENCIUS
Three centuries before the Christian age
China's great teacher, Mencius, was born;
Her teeming millions did not know that morn
Had broken on her darkness; that a sage,
Reared by a noble mother, would her page
Of history forevermore adorn.
For twenty years, from court to court, forlorn
He journeyed, poverty his heritage,
And preached of virtue, but none cared to hear.
Life seemed a failure, like a barren rill;
He wrote his books, and lay beneath the sod:
When, lo! his work began; and far and near
Adown the ages Mencius preaches still:
Do thy whole duty, trusting all to God.
—Sarah Knowles Bolton.
———
He stood, the youth they called the Beautiful,
At morning, on his untried battle-field,
And laughed with joy to see his stainless shield,
When, with a tender smile, but doubting sigh,
His lord rode by.
When evening fell, they brought him, wounded sore,
His battered shield with sword-thrusts gashed and rent,
And laid him where the king stood by his tent.
"Now art thou Beautiful," the master said,
And bared his head.
—Annie M. L. Hawes.
———
Great men grow greater by the lapse of time;
We